Mary Fleener's cubist comics have a distinctive look which sets them apart from the work of any other comic artist. Her autobiographical stories (which compose the majority of her work) are also distinctive in that they are less grim and more entertaining than most other similarly autobiographical comics. Fleener plowed through the '70s, swinging through periods of quasi-casual sex and drug use, and eventually settling down into a mellow pot-and-beer surfer lifestyle with her husband. Life of the Party compiles most of her autobiographical work in one softcover book. Many of the stories center around her party period, such as "The Jelly," a story about her problems with a huge-breasted roommate, and those are usually the strongest. Fleener has a good way of recapturing the prevalent attitudes of the time without glorifying them. She does, however, glorify herself somewhat, placing herself as the calm in the storm, the only one who kept a level head while people were falling apart around her. Life of the Party can also be a little annoying—like when she pops out some bullshit philosophy about karmic balance or marijuana being an herb and not a drug—in the middle of an otherwise good story, but those are usually quick notes which can be passed over. Fleener's best happens when she lets it all fly, rendering characters with flailing limbs, multi-expressioned cubist faces, and dark spaces filling the page.